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Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

nytimes.com

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Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#181

Post by blurry »

mchristoff wrote: post #174
blurry wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what disgusts me ? Your complete blindness to how good your father had it. As a not-so-recent immigrant to the US, I've found it laughably easy to have a good life here. I am not talking about myself since I came at 25 and spoke enough English to get by. I am talking older relatives and their friends, people well into their 50's who did not speak a word of English. There is an absolute wealth of opportunitie…

woah woah woah! i appreciate your zeal and your need to direct your anger somewhere, but your sending it the wrong way buddy. my original comment was not meant to express how hard mine or my family's life is/was, it was to clear up statements like this: "union workers at gm who make 8x the wages, do less work" It's simply not true, and it does disgust me that we feel the need to degrade a whole class of people to mak…

How am I taking tidbits of your words and making them into a story that I want? I simply called you out on exactly what you said, both your facts and your angry, self-righteous tone.

You said your father has put you through college and has retired after 25 years. Presuming he started working at 25, we have him retiring at what, 50? Who pays for their kids' college and retires at 50? Investment bankers and plastic surgeons, that's who. The rest of the country works well into old age (most without adequate health insurance) and has their kids taking on student loans.

You opened your comment with anger, talking about your disgust, accusing crabapple of over-generalization and ignorance, and essentially dismissing all of us as moneybags who use hypothetical Denny's waitresses to degrade your family or ignore your hardship. (Read: shut up and fork over the money - or, pardon me, you stated that you are as of yet undecided whether it would benefit your family, so I guess we'll just sit tight and wait for your decision.)

You accuse me of zeal and psycho-analyze my anger but I am just reacting to the broad-daylight robbery that is taking place. People like you think that if they make a lot of noise and talk about their dads working their asses of for x number of years, we'll all get misty eyed and just hand over our money.

You are now getting a dose of your own medicine. I take your dad's 2-hour commute and raise you mine's World War II. Ridiculous, isn't it. When auto workers and their families stop blanketing the internet with their sob stories, we'll stop commenting on them. Over.

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#182

Post by Dilpil »

Tritis wrote: post #120

http://www.npr.org/news/specials/gmvstoyota/ GM's problem is that it costs them money to make a car. Profitability per Vehicle Source: 2005 Harbour Report GM: Loses $2,331 per vehicle Toyota: Makes $1,488 per vehicle If GM continues to lose money on each vehicle sold, how wil a bailout help in any way?

That figure is meaningless, it is amortizing the total operational cost of GM over each vehicle sale, when the total operational cost of GM is not directly proportional to number of cars sold- not by a long shot. The article is falsely portraying that as the average sale price per unit minus marginal cost per car, which it is not.

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#183

Post by chris11 »

Tichy wrote: post #109
chris11 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And recently today the heads of GM and Ford both refused to take a one dollar annual salary as Lee Iacocca did when Chrysler was bailed out in the 80's. So I really don't see top management in either Ford or GM to do anything to symbolize sacrifice.

It is probably just that, though, a symbolic sacrifice, not a real sacrifice? I suppose they still get their stock options, boni and what not.

I think its more than a symbol. They would probably still get a lot money, but at least it would be mainly based on stock price/performance.

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#184

Post by Dilpil »

fallentimes wrote: post #45
dionidium wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can probably all agree that's it's silly to require that workers play dress-up and come to a non-existent job every morning. But, assuming that requirement were dropped, you haven't exactly explained why it was wrong of the workers to ask for a piece of the (extraordinarily high [0]) earnings the company enjoyed at that time, or why it was wrong of the company to pay it. Am I wrong to assume that the company thoug…

That's a strawman; I never said it was wrong to ask. Anyways... The company should have invested more of their marketing budget in R&D and produced quality cars. Empirically (consumer reports, Car & Driver, et al) U.S. cars have been subpar compared to their foreign counterparts for many years. Though some of my friends & family insist they're rapidly catching up nowadays. In the present, I don't know one way or the…

It's not a coincidence, indeed, it is a logical inevitability: it is far easier to treat your employees well if your company is successful.

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#185

Post by LukeG »

Retric wrote: post #163
LukeG wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of great comments here, but not this one: you cannot work 40 hrs/week, have a family, and become a brain surgeon in your spare time. I have 5 doctors in my immediate family and know a bunch more in medical school, and you have no idea what you're talking about. That being said, I'm with you about needing to learn new skills. The days of the company man are over, and in our new world you need to have a set of ski…

I know someone who decided to became a Doctor at 30 (no kids or wife). He did not go to a top med school but he graduated without debt and works in the ER. Now he has a wife, but no kids and works part time so he could become a brain surgeon. It's cheep to live a lower middle class existence and working full time in the summer you can make a lot of money to live off of the rest of the year. The idea that you need to…

My brother was the first person (ever) to go an offshore med school and then do his residency at Mass General (the Harvard hospital). So yeah, definitely don't need a top med school. And doing that at 30 (or 25 or 40) is awesome.

But a family is the biggest commitment/obligation you can have - [almost] impossible to deal with wife/kids/work/med school concurrently.

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#186

Post by mbreese »

Dilpil wrote: post #184
fallentimes wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a strawman; I never said it was wrong to ask. Anyways... The company should have invested more of their marketing budget in R&D and produced quality cars. Empirically (consumer reports, Car & Driver, et al) U.S. cars have been subpar compared to their foreign counterparts for many years. Though some of my friends & family insist they're rapidly catching up nowadays. In the present, I don't know one way or the…

It's not a coincidence, indeed, it is a logical inevitability: it is far easier to treat your employees well if your company is successful.

But it's also true that happy workers are more productive, healthier, less likely to quit, and thus will make the company more successful.

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#187

Post by astine »

mattmaroon wrote: post #170
astine wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that he means explicit wealth redistribution. If government uses your tax money to to finance the police system, sure it is moving wealth around, but a healthy police is necessary for a free society and functioning economy, so in the end, everyone benefits. This is different from just taking from one group and giving to another.

Well, if the government takes some tax money and uses that to prop up an industry that directly or indirectly employs 6 million people, that too helps everyone. Those people while employed buy things, pay taxes, don't create an oversupply of workers that lowers wages for everyone, etc. It's not as cut and dry as some Robinhoodesque vision of taking taxes from some and giving to another, which McCain and Palin wanted…

that too helps everyone - no it doesn't; not in the long run.

I honestly don't know what McCain & Palin have been saying about this (nor do I care) but corporate welfare undermines accountability at the corporate level. Accountability is absolutely essential to functioning of the market and handouts such as these have been undermining the US auto industry since the fifties. This is a very large part of the reason that they are in trouble today. If we are concerned about the employees, we should just give them the money directly, but giving the money to the corporate execs is essentially rewarding bad behavior and staving off the inevitable. Corporate handouts are like stimulants for the economy; they provide a short-term high, but they will be followed by a corresponding low and the longer you prolong treatment, the longer and more powerful the low.

BTW a labor surplus isn't necessarily so bad a thing; employment for the sake of employment is almost as bad an economic policy as corporate welfare (It's one of the more obvious failures of the New Deal.) and if the big three are no longer profitable, that is what this bailout amounts to.

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#188

Post by ensignavenger »

mattmaroon wrote: post #103
ensignavenger wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that it is morally wrong to take money from relatively rich people to give to relatively poor, but not the other way around? I think any (Government) wealth redistribution is morally wrong, but that's just my 2 cents!

Government cannot exist without redistributing wealth. You've been listening to too many Palin rallies. Every time a government changes tax rates, wealth gets redistributed. Every time it builds a school or a road, wealth is redistributed. Every economic policy redistributes wealth. I hope the I just redistributed your 2 cents :)

The government could just print the money that they need to operate, thus there would be no redistribution! But that probably isn't a great idea!

I meant the explicit redistribution where the government takes money from one group, and then gives it to another, versus the government taxing in a fair a simple way (See the Fair Tax) and then spends the money the way the Constitution intended.

In other words, they spend money on 1) Paying Debts of the United States, 2) Provide for the Common Defense, 3) Promote the General Welfare (General meaning that it does not promote the welfare of individuals, or corporations, but promotes the welfare of the entire nation; also notice the word, 'promote', not 'provide') Article 1, Section 8.

As Jefferson said, it is "...the most sacred of the duties of a government, to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens. To this a single observation shall yet be added. To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, 'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it." (Note in Political Economy , p. 464-66)

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#189

Post by mchristoff »

blurry wrote: post #181
mchristoff wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

woah woah woah! i appreciate your zeal and your need to direct your anger somewhere, but your sending it the wrong way buddy. my original comment was not meant to express how hard mine or my family's life is/was, it was to clear up statements like this: "union workers at gm who make 8x the wages, do less work" It's simply not true, and it does disgust me that we feel the need to degrade a whole class of people to mak…

How am I taking tidbits of your words and making them into a story that I want? I simply called you out on exactly what you said, both your facts and your angry, self-righteous tone. You said your father has put you through college and has retired after 25 years. Presuming he started working at 25, we have him retiring at what, 50? Who pays for their kids' college and retires at 50? Investment bankers and plastic sur…

no where did i say my dad only worked 25 years. i said he worked for gm over 25 years. does this mean it was his first job, no? as for student loans, i certainly do have them. it's unfortunate that in this country simply getting student loans will not pay for a four year school. again, i believe i said "benefit my country or my family". do i have to go on? seriously, this is the classic case of reading what you want to read to form the picture to fit your preconceived notions.

sure, "you raise me" wwII. wtf? i'm sorry for what your dad went through, but so did my grandparents who were born in eastern europe and escaped to america. i just don't get this idea that you can't feel any compassion if someone didn't escape genocide. there's a lot more complexity to people's stories than you may realize.

my simple point is not that you should cry for any autoworker or even give them a dime. i'm just sick of hearing statement like crabapple's which completely exaggerate the facts.

* 8x wages - no * no deductable healthcare - not for 10 years * work less - by my personal experience, no

it comes from this characature of what the reality is. the fact is AMERICANS ARE PRIVILEGED. i get it. i'm not asking anyone to cry for my family. what i am saying is that chances are most auto workers are hard working people like the rest of us. i know my father didn't escape ethnic conflict in europe in wwII, but he certainly did the best of his ability to provide for his family. i'm not saying that deserves your money, but i am saying that it doesn't deserve to be belittled.

Re: Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

#190

Post by mchristoff »

mchristoff wrote: post #189
blurry wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How am I taking tidbits of your words and making them into a story that I want? I simply called you out on exactly what you said, both your facts and your angry, self-righteous tone. You said your father has put you through college and has retired after 25 years. Presuming he started working at 25, we have him retiring at what, 50? Who pays for their kids' college and retires at 50? Investment bankers and plastic sur…

no where did i say my dad only worked 25 years. i said he worked for gm over 25 years. does this mean it was his first job, no? as for student loans, i certainly do have them. it's unfortunate that in this country simply getting student loans will not pay for a four year school. again, i believe i said "benefit my country or my family". do i have to go on? seriously, this is the classic case of reading what you want…

hmmm... you know i just wrote this, and i'm realizing i'm just falling into this trap needless argument. looking back at my thread i think i approached crabapple's initial comment with way too much zeal myself. the thing that irked me the most about crabapple's comment was not the point (ie agreeing with mit romney's position), but the way in which he/she went about making it. by perpetuating this characature of the "uaw king", i feel like it belittles honest, working americans like my father. i realize that my father was lucky for being born in america after wwII, but he did the best he could with the hand he was dealt and my pride certainly show through.
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